Coffee really was a gift from the gods Lisa thought as the first sip of caffeinated over-sweetened liquid hit the back of her throat. It didn't matter how shit a morning was, coffee always brought a bit of life to her. So the rest of the office had a pretty good idea that she was having a supremely shitty morning when she'd brought in two of the largest coffee cups known to man when she'd come to work.
Her scroll had fallen off the charger and died causing her alarms to not go off, her cat had woken her with the gift of a broken glass, traffic had sucked, the radio had nothing good on, and to top it off she'd learned her favorite sports team had lost. Not to mention the ratings. If ratings were good Lisa could face waking to a grimm in her room with a smile. Alas that was far from the case. Oh, and she chipped a nail. God, today sucked, she bemoaned.
Finishing her first massive cup of coffee in a few large gulps, she finally found the will to boot up her work computer. Clicking her email into view, it just confirmed more shitty rating and no leads on anything news-worthy. Reaching for her second cup she groaned at her shitty luck. It had seemed as though everything had been going her way a few weeks ago. She'd had a juicy celebrity gossip story all lined up that would have killed. Too bad said celebrity had a frankly ridiculous amount of lawyers on speed dial. Damn lawyers, absolute bloodsuckers in her opinion. With that dead she'd gone back to the rash of dust robbers that had been permeating the city. Unfortunately, the headline "Roman Steals More Shit" could only be run so many times before people just stopped caring. Really, how was it her fault that her nonstop coverage of outrageous and violent news made people desensitized to run of the mill dust robberies?
Responding to some emails from various producers, while slamming the last of her coffee she couldn't help but be pissed. Yesterday the biggest raid of the year had went down; a violent bloodbath that would have been a surefire hit. A great story that she could have spun into something great, too bad she had been on goosechase. Something about a bandit lord being spotted at some dive bar, utterly crap as it turned out. So while she was chasing drunken stories, Jan had picked up the police raid story. Fucking Jan; the only reason she'd been in the area was because she was going to a dog shelter for a puff piece for gods sake.
An annoyingly nasally voice cut into her sulking. "Hey Lisa." Uggh, didn't you have to speak the devil's name for them to show up, Lisa thought as she looked up to see Jan.
"Just wanted to say hi girl." Jan continued with a million len smile on her perfect face.
"Yeah, how's it going?" Lisa asked with her own billion len perfect smile. She knew this game.
"Oh, sooooo great girl. I just got the seven o'clock spot. Isn't that great!"
"So great." Lisa complimented as she idly wondered how great a story it would make if Jan dropped dead.
"I know right." Jan beamed. "I know it eats into your time slot, but I'm glad I can help with your show getting slow."
"So great." Lisa repeated without dropping her smile. As much as she was paying her dentist, she may as well get every len worth. Really though, wouldn't it just be amazing if a meteorite stuck Jan dead though? For the ratings of course.
Unfortunately for Lisa's purely professional wishes, Jan continued to drone on. "I can't believe I got such a great slot so quick though. It's like last month I was just an intern."
Blowing all your supervisors will do that, Lisa fought herself from saying.
"I even have a meeting with the head of the network tonight."
"I'm sure you'll really wow him with your journalism skills." Lisa remarked with just the most subtle hint of sarcasm.
"Aawwwww thanks." Jan continued, completely missing Lisa's barb. "Honestly I thought you'd be mad."
Lisa's smile refused to dip as her annoyance grew."Mad? No, you've worked so hard and you definitely deserve this job."
Jan continued to beam like the absolute airhead Lisa knew she was. "I know right. At first I just thought it was because I'm just naturally hot, but people have been telling me I have a great head for this work. I'm so glad you're not mad though. I really thought you'd be angry with everyone telling me I'm going to replace you."
Years of being on air and fighting in this cut throat business couldn't keep Lisa's smile from dipping just a bit at those words. She knew she was having a rough spell, but it was infuriating to know this floozy was putting a noose around her career.
"Anyways I gotta go girl. Have a good one." Jan giggled as she mericully walked away, giving a wave to Lisa
Returning the wave, Lisa's head hit her desk as soon as she saw Jan leave. "Fuck my life." Was it really too much to ask to have a massive scandal or catastrophe land in her lap right now?
Sluggishly she found some will to go back to working. Demoralizing, that meant going over Jan's reporting from yesterday. It had been sensational, but sloppy. Unlike her competition she had to use a different kind of head to keep her job, and if she could find something missing in the story she could co-opt it while taking Jan's one actual reporting credential. Watching the report for a bit she had to turn off the audio; it was grating enough seeing the ditzy blonde without hearing her annoying voice. As she further lamented the blonde another brief flash of the aforementioned hair color had her pausing the video and rewinding it.
"Hmmm…"
In the background the familiar face of the bounty hunter she'd met a few weeks ago at the dinner was visible. She remembered he'd appeared to have some sort of relation with the police, in addition to being some kind of player in the city. It had been worth a look at the time, but all she had found was some Beacon drop-out; nothing impressive, and not worth the time. The video showed him and his partner, another Beacon loser, covered in blood and looking pretty rough. She knew from the police reports that no bounty hunters had been mentioned, but the blood definitely pointed to some very personal involvement of the two. Still, she thought, it wouldn't be out of place for the police to "forget" to mention another party to get some glory. It was all a bit off though, that kind of feeling she got when she smelled a story. She already had that vibe about the story when none of her police contacts had tipped her to the raid in the first place. Almost like it had come down unexpectedly.
Standing up she made her way to the company coffee machine and pulled the video up on her scroll as her mind stitched theories together. It seemed like the pair may have started the engagement, probably chasing a warrant on some gang member, things escalated, then the police swooped in and got lucky with the gang's leader. Piercing that theory together as she filled another cup of coffee she let out an annoyed huff. Some people missing from a police report wasn't news. Pausing the video to pour her coffee she couldn't but shake the feeling of a missing element in all this.
With a sip of life giving caffeine, a name came to the fore of her thoughts; Winchester. The last name of one of the bounty hunters and also the leader of the gang. It seemed like a more personal reason had brought the pair into conflict. Pressing the play button to resume the video she watched the pair like a hawk. The family element was good, it brought characters to the violence and could be spun into a nice personal narrative that people ate up. Her reporter senses still teased at something juicer though. Then she saw it. The blonde, Jaune Arc, if she remembered correctly, spoke some unheard words and made a hand gesture to an officer attempting to put a dark-haired cat faunus in cuffs. Whatever was said had the officer back off; an unusual reaction. She was familiar enough with VPD to know that if the cuffs were out then the police were pretty confident in making an arrest. The casual dismissal from a lowly bounty hunter, a profession that usually brought scorn from the more professional police department, was the out of place detail that finally put the nail in the coffin for her suspicion to investigate. Sure, it could have been some misunderstanding, but between the comment of Jaune being a "mover and shaker" in the diner and the perceived authority the blonde exeterted had Lisa practically salivating at the possibilities. Really, what was the VPD doing allowing an unassuming third party moving unchallenged at a bloodbath?
Whatever the answer, it was news. The kind of potential story that had Lisa smiling genuinely, in a manner that most would describe akin to a Beaywolf in an orphanage, as she looked at the pair. "Looks like you are worth my time boys."
Jaune shivered as a chill went down his spine.
"You good?" Cardin asked as he racked a weight.
"Yeah," Jaune replied, dismissing the feeling of unjustified dread."Just got a weird feeling."
"Whatever. You're set bro." His partner said as he started putting plates on the bar for Jaune.
Laying back and lining his hands with the bar, Jaune couldn't help but internally laugh at Cardin's recent nickname of bro. Honestly, Cardin was a solid bro, he just still couldn't get over his best friend being Cardin though. It was a weird friendship,sure he'd been friends with Ren back in Beacon, but outside of that Jaune hadn't had many male friends in life. Most had been dweeby comic book nerds, and as for Ren, he wasn't exactly a man of many words. Being friends with Cardin was different, more competitive in way, definitely more of a bro kinda vibe.
With a final grunt and a few hollars of encouragement from Cardin, Jaune finally racked out his set. "Fuck yeah." He yelled; he'd just hit a new max.
"Fuck yeah!" Cardin exclaimed. "Hit maxes, evade taxes!"
"What?"
"Nothing." Cardin quickly remarked, trying to look innocent.
"Uggh, I'm so glad all the business accounts are under my name."
"Eh, don't worry about it." Cardin assured.
It was also strange knowing that Cardin probably had done stuff that would land him in jail for a pretty long time. Probably would have bothered him in the past, but his outlook on the world and concepts of legality were pretty skewed now; being an illegal agent of the state while simultaneously working for a crime lord. Once again, not how he saw life going. Thinking about it he supposed he would have considered himself a bad guy just a few months ago. That had been then though, now he'd seen those "bad guys"; kidnappers, murders, rapists, and corrupt lawmen. He was just a simple guy trying to make his way in this screwed up world, and if it meant he got to clean up scum while doing it, that was all the better.
Any more thoughts on the matter ended with Cardin speaking "Hey man, think I see your weird feeling."
"What?"
"See the tall chick with the dark hair?"
Looking across the gym he saw a woman shooting daggers at him. She definitely cut an imposing figure at about a foot taller than him and scars all over, on display in her typical gym apparel. Most imposingly for Jaune she held a striking similarity to Raven. "I see her."
"Yeah, she's been glaring at you all day." As the two looked at her she started walking towards them. "Looks like you got a type." Cardin joked.
Gods, he hoped not. Scared and horny was not how he wanted to describe love life. His recent night with Raven had been amazing, but more of a "holy shit it's amazing I'm alive." kind of amazing. A lot of booze and adrenaline had been involved in the decision from what little he could remember. At least this woman just looked super pissed, oh wait, that was pretty bad too. Also the fact that this was a typically huntsman frequented gym did not bode well for him.
"Ummm…, can I help you?" He awkwardly asked as the woman stepped up to him.
Instead of any words the woman jerked a finger into his chest before pointing to herself and finally at the sparring ring; central in the gym.
"You want to spar?" He asked, really hoping he was reading that wrong hope died pretty quickly as she violently smacked her fist into her palm. Looking back to Cardin for some kind of support he only saw his partner with a smile that told him he found this hilarious and a thumbs up.
So much for bros.
For a moment he nervously thought about walking away or just saying no. This chick was probably a huntsman with years and weight on him. Didn't exactly bode well for not getting his ass kicked. Instead annoyance flashed in his head. He didn't know what this woman's problem was, but he wasn't backing down to some asshole who wanted to pick a fight. Sitting up from the bench, he flexed his sores muscles before staring her down with a glare of his own. "Let's go."
Instead of any anger or glee he was expecting from this random woman who had challenged him to a fight out of nowhere, he instead watched her flush red and look around nervously. For a moment he wondered if he'd done something stupid as usual, but her glare returned and she stalked towards the ring.
Stepping inside the ring Jaune linked his scroll to the aura detector. He still had no idea what was going on, but someone had said square up, so like an infuriating small number in algebra, here he was. Looking back to his opponent he didn't feel like this was a fight he could win, but that wasn't the point anymore.
"Go easy on her!" Cardin called from the sideline, still smiling like the asshole Jaune definitely knew he was.
"For sure." He called back. Mentally he made a note to somehow get Cardin back for this.
Taking a fighting stance Jaune readied himself. Locking eyes with the woman he couldn't help but notice an absolutely deranged smile on her face. He shot a glare that only seemed to make her smile more. It didn't matter what happened, he thought as he watched a countdown appear on the monitor screen. 3. He was going to make this asshole regret picking on him. 2. At the very least he was going to make her remember this too. 1.
DING
Two minutes. That was what the monitor read from Jaunes' position on the ground. He'd lasted two minutes, mostly because he had a solid amount of aura. Attempting to get back up his body responded with a solid "no thanks" to that and kindly reminded him he was pretty much tenderized meat at this point. Pretty sure she was going to remember this fight though. It wasn't everyday you didn't even get hit once in a spar. He was pretty sure he didn't even block a single attack during that massacre either.
Stalking forward his opponent knelt down next to him, a look of rage on her face. Not a great sign. "That all you got?" He groaned. Maybe not a great thing to say, but he was at 5% aura and he could afford to be cheeky at the very least. It wasn't like she'd attack him more. Probably.
Grabbing his collar she shoved her scroll into his face, text displayed on the screen. Be here next week, same time.
He probably should have said no. Maybe accent that with a hell or fuck no, but Jaune had just had his head used as a speedbag and was still determined to not backdown, like a dumbass he might say a bit later, so instead he took a different approach. Instead he flashed her the most cocky smile he could manage. "Better bring your A game next time."
With a silent growl his opponent let him go and just as quickly as she had appeared she walked out of the gym.
"So." Cardin spoke up as he walked over. "She seems to really like kicking your ass" He added as he offered Jaune a hand.
"I'm just gonna stay here for a bit, really appreciating the floor." A few more moments to regain some strength and sanity to realize he'd just signed up for a round two he couldn't help but let out a groan. "I miss my old bully."
"Ha, because he was the coolest dude ever."
Smiling back, Jaune took Cardin's hand and allowed himself to be hauled to his feet. "Na, he was kinda a bitch."
Cardin just laughed as he dragged his friend from the ring. "Remind me to record next week."
Silently, Jaune let out a pained wine.
Neo's fist went through the brick wall in the was so happy she was practically jumping up and down. She was so pissed she wanted to keep punching the wall till the building collapsed. Emotions flipped through her faster than her eye color. It had taken her so long to plan this all out. Days stalking him to find out the best place to approach him, a lot more to find the nerve to actually do it. She had even thought up an illusion to disguise herself that looked like his type, even though that was old, feral, and frankly, in her opinion, super ugly. Really he could better than that old lady she'd had to endure. Like her, obviously.
Now a week ago she had been working really hard to kill Jaune, which she was positive that she would have succeeded in soon enough. However Neo now had a new goal; date Jaune. It turned out she really liked him. Easy mistake to make really. Completely Roman's fault actually. As Ice cream was the most liked thing by her, and Roman as people went, she could be forgiven to not know there was another way you would like a person. Seriously, totally, 100%, not humiliating at all to not know that you could have feeling like that. Especially if you'd never felt them before, and that asshole Roman never bothered to explain them. Looking back on it, Roman should have known a professional woman, such as herself, would be much too busy advancing her knowledge of crime to know these sorts of things on her own. That's why she had thrown him out a window. A few times.
Turns out she may have done some horrifically embarrassing things in regards to Jaune. She may have actually spent the last few days locked in her room screaming into her pillow, not to muffle the sound obviously; it just felt nice, knocking back alcohol and ice cream in an attempt to forget her humiliation, and generally spending most of her time the same shade of one of her namesakes flavor when that failed. Actually, thinking back on the single most humiliating moment of her life, she was thinking Roman could do with a few more express exits from their safe house.
Thankfully she worked out some of those feelings in her isolation. Turned out she wanted Jaune. Which was great, because she was great at taking things she wanted. She knew she was at a disadvantage in this though. Thanks to Roman, she was behind the curve on this whole dating thing. Good news, she was amazing at hunting people, which turned out, super great for courting and dating. She still didn't know how the legal system was involved, but it'd never applied to her before so not a big deal. What she did understand, from a mix of internet searches and interrogations of Roman, showed that the idea of dating was just spending time with who you liked and doing stuff you enjoyed together. At first she had considered inviting Jaune to a good murder, she liked that, and he seemed to as well. Already shared interests, how great was that. She did decide to hold off though. Murder just seemed a bit… more like a third date thing. The internet had mentioned that was a good time to get more forward. Crime was a shared activity, but that was more of a work thing. She loved the work, and Jaune was in the business too, but seriously who wanted to work on a date. A nice ice cream date was the next idea, something simple and sweet. Neo was actually pretty satisfied with that idea, even if she wasn't sure it was a shared thing Jaune enjoyed, until an even better idea came to her. Fighting, she loved fighting, and Jaune seemed to like it too. Finally she had a shared interest couple date idea.
So Neo had spent literally all day waiting at the gym to ask him to spar. The whole thing had been extremely nerve-wracking for her. It had been terrible thinking every way it could go, every minute making her more nervous. She definitely hadn't run out a few times, losing her nerve. Even though she for sure hadn't done that, it pissed her off that she was so nervous. Neo was the fucking Reaper of Vale, and there she was, trembling like a damn school girl. That really made her mad, and usually things got violent when she got mad. So when she had finally seen Jaune, she had angerly marched over to him to ask him out and fight. Then he had kinda, maybe, glanced at her and she had kinda, maybe, ran away. Which massively pissed her off, so she had gone back in and glared all her anger at him. Nobody, no matter how cute, scared Neo off. So finally good and pissed she had marched up to him and demanded a fight.
Too bad she forgot to ask him out. Just thinking about that again had her putting another fist sized dent in the brick wall. She had totally blown it. Then to make matters worse his complete jackass of a friend told him to go easy on her, which he infuriatingly did. That jerk had actually let her win so easily. It was like he just made the whole thing a joke. Well, joke was on him, she definitely didn't go easy. How dare he not take her seriously. The worst part though, the part that had her angrily stamping her foot in what an onlooker would have described as utterly adorable, was that fact that he had basically said she sucked. Was that all you got, bring your A game next time? She was! Without killing him at least. And he'd just laughed at her, taking a savage beating like it was a regular Tuesday for him. God that pissed her off.
At least she'd asked him out on another sorta date. As mad as she was, she couldn't fight a traitorous smile from forming on her face at that. Taking a breath, she knew what she'd do. If Jaune didn't think she was serious enough to fight then she would just have to get better. She'd show him she was to be reckoned with, and then he'd actually fight her. Today showed her that she just needed to get better and go harder to get Jaune to notice her. If that's what he wanted, by the gods, Jaune would know what Neo was capable of when she wanted something. No matter how hard she'd have to kick his ass.
Adam Taturas was a busy man, more sense he'd teamed up with that crazy fire bitch. The scope of the Vale operation was massive. In the past the White Fang mostly raided SDC facilities or convoys. While no small feat, it usually entailed about a week or two of planning and recon and a few hours of intense combat where he strived to always overmatch the target to limit casualties and maximize success. That was the strength of the White Fang, it got to pick where and when it fought; their strongest forces against the enemies weakest. After that it was just a matter of hauling ass out of the area or melding into the local population. Usually he was in the same region for about a month. So the last few months he'd spent at Mt. Glenn was beginning to unsettle him. In truth the whole operation was a big gamble for him and his men.
As big a risk as having so many men and resources in the area was, it was worth it. Humanity was massive compared to the White Fang; every raid was just a drop in the bucket to them. No matter how much dust was stolen or facilities burnt to the ground, it was just a tax write off for the SDC. If the change Adam fought for was to come to pass the White Fang needed to make humanity truly bleed. They needed to fear the faunas if any hope of his people being treated fairly was to become reality.
All this meant that Adam had the same room for the longest time in recent memory now. Kinda nice actually. As nice as an old grimm evacuation bunker could be at least. It was meant to serve as a hold out point for the city's inhabitants in case of a partial invasion of grimm, but based on the countless skeletons that had been in the bunker when he'd arrived it was safe to say they were unprepared for what eventually did happen. More evidence of humanity's weakness in his mind. It was sturdy though, had plenty of rooms, generators, a basic communications hub for the dead city, and best of all the underground nature kept his men concealed from any aerial recon. A pretty good command center all things considered. Once they cleaned the skeletons out of course.
Currently, he was sitting at a makeshift desk reviewing a mountain of reports and paperwork. As important as they all were to the cause he made a small growl of annoyance just looking at them, turned out massive complex operations generated a lot of paperwork. Pinching the bridge of his nose he wished he could just be fighting humans again. Cutting people down really was much more simple than this crap.
Speaking of more paperwork, one of his lieutenants entered his temporary office and laid another report on his desk. "News on the Atlas team."
That had his attention. The Atlas cell of the White Fang had loaned them some of their best men for this. He hadn't told them what they were doing, if word had reached Sienna about his plans he was sure a civil war would break out in the White Fang. Most did not have the conviction and strength to do the hard things for their people. His men were all the kind of warriors who possessed such strength. Unfortunately they were too few, and the Vale branch was one of the weakest of all the Fang. They knew not the horrors their brethren across the world faced, and it made them soft in a lack of convictions and numbers. So he needed some reinforcements.
The official word across the Fang was that he was here to build the Vale branch to be a force to be reckoned with. While Sienna was usually a weak and hesitant leader in Adam's eyes that seemed to always be at odds with him, she had liked the idea of him settling down. His violent raids made her squeamish, as if their peoples freedom was not bought with human blood. Thinking him cowed, she'd moved a good chunk of resouseres his way. The Atlas team included.
The Atlas cell was the smallest branch by far, the heavy handed militaristic regime seeing to that, but the Atlas cell held some of the hardest and most experienced White Fang members thanks to those hardships. Team November was the team loaned out to him, and they were all ex-Atlas military or intelligence . A shame that keeping them in the dark limited their use, but they were just the kind of professionals he needed to do the sensitive work of recruiting Beacon students. In Adam's experience it paid to have people on the inside. Sometimes recruits got cold feet though, and Team November were exactly the kind of people who could silence Huntsmen aspirants. So when they had all been slaughtered a few weeks ago it had come as a shock. The men had been competent enough to be trusted to act on their own, so Adam had no clue why the hell they had decided to engage in an ill fated assault that had left them all dead.
Grabbing the file from the lieutenant he put down his current paperwork; a requisition form he needed to sign for some reason. Pretty typical form actually, it seemed one cell in the city always needed chem-light batteries, grid squares, and ACOG batteries. With that pushed aside he read the new file.
"How accurate is this?" Adam questioned as he finished the report.
"Direct from High Tower." The lieutenant confirmed.
High Tower, the highest backer the White Fang had. They had connected through Cinder, the woman seemingly having endless connections and resources. Adam didn't know who HighTower was, but his word was good as fact on this report.
"So it seems a PI, Jaune Arc, was responsible." Adam spoke to his officer.
"Do you want me to have some men take care of him?"
"Don't looks like he isn't investigating further and we weren't connected to the attack. Hunting him would only risk further exposure." Adam concluded. It seemed as if Team November had simply run out of luck or gotten sloppy. Unfortunate, but in the grand scope of things not a big problem for Adam. Back to paperwork it seemed. Damn, being a freedom fighter was better when the only thing he had to write was poetry for Blake.
A sudden feeling of liquid on Adam's hand had him realizing he'd crushed his pen thinking about his ex. Tossing it aside into a steadily growing pile of broken pens in the waste bin he angrily wondered what the woman who had betrayed the cause, as well as him, was doing. More importantly he wondered where that bitch had scampered off to hide.
Silently, the White Fang Lieutenant tried his hardest to ignore the sound of teeth grinding.
Outside the makeshift office two guards were posted. Not that any real possibility of someone assassinating Adam existed, but mostly just to have busy work. That was why one of them, Perry, was just watching the news on his scroll and really not paying attention to much. He wasn't much of a news guy, but the new reporter was hot. Bonus, the story was about some racist assholes getting arrested.
"Hey, isn't that the chick into those fucked up books in the background?" His partner, being a nosey asshole and looking over at his screen, asked.
"It is." Was what perry was going to say, so when he instead heard someone else say it waaaaay too close to him, he figured he could be forgiven for a very manly, high-pitched and shrill scream. Mini heart attack passing, Perry looked over to see Adam, seemingly teleported, beside him and looking at his scroll like a man possessed. "Ummmm…. Fan of Jan Jackson boss?" He awkwardly questioned.
Completely ignoring Perry, Adam watched his beloved with rapt attention, and slightly reddening vision, as he saw the PI, the one he'd just been made aware of, act way too familiar with his woman. A stretch most would say, but jealous ex's with histories of violence weren't usually known for calmly reading situations.
The lieutenant, who was still wondering how'd he'd suddenly been pinned under Adam's desk and why there was a boot print on his face, became aware that his boss was giving orders to him in a rather angry manner.
"Bring me Jaune Arc," Adam snarled. "Immediately."